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The Japanese Butoh company Sankai Juku from Japan performs Kagemi - Beyond The Metaphors Of Mirrors, November 14, 2006 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco.
Chris Stewart / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

Photo: Chris Stewart

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The Japanese Butoh company Sankai Juku from...

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The Japanese Butoh company Sankai Juku from Japan performs Kagemi - Beyond The Metaphors Of Mirrors, November 14, 2006 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco.
Chris Stewart / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

Photo: Chris Stewart

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The Japanese Butoh company Sankai Juku from...

Image 3 of 4

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The Japanese Butoh company Sankai Juku from Japan performs Kagemi - Beyond The Metaphors Of Mirrors, November 14, 2006 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco.
Chris Stewart / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

Photo: Chris Stewart

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The Japanese Butoh company Sankai Juku from...

Image 4 of 4

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The Japanese Butoh company Sankai Juku from Japan performs Kagemi - Beyond The Metaphors Of Mirrors, November 14, 2006 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco.
Chris Stewart / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

It's not hard to see why Sankai Juku is the leading popularizer of Japanese butoh, so wildly loved that co-presenters San Francisco Performances and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts counted themselves lucky to book a sold-out, two-night midweek run at the YBCA Theater.

And yet they have the alabaster allure of mannequins in a Neiman Marcus window, so bathed is their every deliberate movement in brilliant light.

In "Kagemi," the 2000 work now on national tour, they also have a stunning set: a ceiling of giant white lotus leaves that hover as though floating on water. Choreographer and founder Ushio Amagatsu has subtitled his work "Beyond the Metaphors of Mirrors," and apparently he intends us to see the dancers as though peered through the reflection of a lake, swimming in some primordial subconscious state. But whether you see "Kagemi" as flowing with watery meaning or flooded with empty butoh stereotypes may depend on the consciousness you bring to it.

Amagatsu, who lives in Japan but premieres his works in Paris, has married his apocalyptic, expressionist dance form to a sure sense of theatricality. He contrasts his sound sources for maximum climax -- vaguely Japanese, Westernized string music (recorded) gives way to tribal percussion rhythms before exploding in techno angst.

The costumes -- first white tunics, then scorched and splattered, then draped in ribbons that lay like filleted fish bones -- are stunning. And the detail of Amagatsu's stage design alone is absorbing: in the back, for instance, a corner of the floor peels up like a sheet of paper, a subtle postmodern touch. Nor is he abashed about tugging at heartstrings; a finale of curved arms and gently undulating hips set to New Age synthesizer surges had me nearly in tears.

That finale is titled "Agitation and Sedimentation," and it does contain the soft, sifting quality of murkiness settling to rest. Another segment is titled "MANEBI -- two mirrors," and you can see the form that Amagatsu was working with in having two dancers reflect each other while a third bounces between as though trapped.

And yet much of "Kagemi" teeters on the edge of parody. In a pulsing early section, the dancers strike common butoh poses, pointing in terror, curling up like bugs, opening mouths in Edward Munch-like screams. It looks like butoh vogueing, and it goes on a long time.

So is it simplistic or subtle that the actual movement in "Kagemi" is surprisingly sparse in suggestiveness? Does it point to emptiness or restraint that one of the few resonant motions in "Kagemi," pushing upward with the hands like a flower emerging through water, occurs only at the beginning and end? Has butoh evolved beyond Sankai Juku's well-lit posturing? It's a question worth asking in the Bay Area, where we're fortunate to have gifted third-generation butoh artists like Shinichi Momo Koga and his company, inkBoat.

In some ways, butoh is all about deep emotional authenticity, a quality that spectacle on the order that Sankai Juku offers automatically throws into doubt. There may be substance to "Kagemi." There certainly is a strange and striking splendor.